Paul Phillip Levertoff: Pioneering Hebrew-Christian Scholar and Leader

[From MISHKAN 37 (2002), pp. 21-34.;

Paul Phillip Levertoff: Pioneering
Hebrew-Christian Scholar and Leader

Jorge Quihonez

My father danced a Hassidic dance the day before he died.

His daughters they were far away, his wife was by his side. . .

He danced for Jesus his Messiah who rose up from the dead

And left the tomb for the upper room

and was known in the breaking of bread. . .

Except you become as a little child my kingdom you shall not see.

So he danced in his joy as he did when a boy and often he danced for me. ..^

Introduction

Paul Phillip Levertoff is best known to the modern world as the Jewish believer
in Jesus (JBJ) who helped translate the Zohar into English for Soncino Press, a
leading publisher of Judaica.^ Less well known about Levertoff, as we will see, is
the fact that he was a major pioneer in the Hebrew Christian movement of his
time. The noted historian on JBJs, Jakob Jocz, includes Levertoff in his short list
of distinguished late 19th and early 20th century JBJ,

Of the many other missionaries of the house of Israel, the names of Salkinson, Cassel, Lucky,
the two Lichtensteins, Schonberger, Joseph Immanuel Landsmann, and Dr. P. P. Levertoff. . .
They can all he characterized by devotion to the missionary cause, simplicity of faith, and
great Talmudic learning.^

In the Encyclopaedia Judaica, several on Jocz's list are given their own entries
and Levertoff is one of these few.^ Levertoff comes rather late on the scene, too

Jorge Quinonez (jorgequinonez@yahoo.coin) (B. S., San Diego State University; M. Ed.,
National University) is an educator and researcher in San Diego, California, U.S.A.
Citations that read "Denise Levertov Papers, M0601, Box X, Folder Y" are courtesy of the
Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries and published by
permission of the Denise Levertov Literary Trust, Valerie Trueblood Rapport and Paul
A. Lacey, Trustees.

' Olga [ Tatjana] Levertoff, "The Ballad of My Father" in Denise Levertov, The Sorrow

Dance (New York: New Directions, 1966), 93-94.

^ See Harry Sperling, Maurice Simon, and Paul Phillip Levertoff (translators), Zohar. Vol.

3 (London: Soncino Press, 1933); Maurice Simon and Paul Phillip Levertoff (translators),

Zohar. Vol. 4. (London: Soncino Press, 1933).

' Jakob Jocz, The Jewish People and Jesus Christ (London: S. P. C. K., 1949), 255.

"* Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Macmillan, Vol. 11, 1972), 71; Cf. Leonard Prager,

Yiddish Culture in Britain (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1990), 405.

22 Jorge Quinonez

late to be included in the principal biographies or studies on JBJ.' He is
conspicuously absent in one modern biographical anthology of JBJ.'' This article
endeavors to provide a brief assessment of Levertoff's life and work, focusing
on the interesting highlights and accomplishments in his life.

Early Life

Paul Phillip Levertoff was born in Orsha, Belarus, to Saul and Batya Levertoff.'
When this happened is not entirely clear: one source** states 12 October 1875,
while another' states 14 October 1878. His birth name was probably not "Paul
Phillip." In a letter in Hebrew from Paul's father, Saul Levertoff, to Paul
Levertoff himself, Saul Levertoff employs Paul's Hebrew/Yiddish name,
"Feivel" '" This was almost certainly his original Jewish name since "Paul
Phillip" is a Christian name.

His family came from a Sephardic background whose religious persuasion
was Hassidic." According to more than one source, '^ he was a descendent of
Rabbi Schneur Zalman. He received a traditional education in the cheder (a
Hebrew primary school). In one instance, Denise Levertov, his younger
daughter," describes her father's first childhood encounter with the New
Testament and Jesus:

' Aaron Bernstein, Jewish Witnesses for Christ (London: O.J.C.I., 1909) [reprinted 1999 by

Keren Ahvah Meshihit, Israel]; Johannes Friedrich Alexander de le Roi, Die evangelische

Christenheit und diejuden, Volumes 1, 2, and 3 (Berlin: H. Reuther, 1891).

'' See Jacob Gartenhaus. Famous Hebrew Christians. TN: I.B.J.M. (1998); The most likely

explanation why Levertoff is not included in this book is that Gartenhaus himself states

(p. 12) that he is heavily dependent on late 19th century secondary sources (cf. note 6).

^ Karina Lehnardt. "LEVERTOFF, Paul Phillip." <http:/ /www.bautz.de/bbkl/1/

Levertoff.shtml> June 1998.

* According to an e-mail copy (dated 7 March 2002) of an unpublished record on

Levertoff, courtesy of Charles Hundley from "The Church's Ministry among the Jewish

People" (or CMJ, formerly known as the London Jews Society or the LjS) with it

headquarters based in England. According to this information, Levertoff's birth date is

"12 Oct 1875 at Janowitsch, near Vitwpsk, Russia". This becomes more interesting: he

applied for work with the LJS in late 1896 (according to the unpublished CMJ record). If

he was born in 1875, he would have been 21 years old at the time of application,

otherwise if he was born in 1878 he would only have been 18 years old-rather young to

be employed by the LIS!

' Karina Lehnardt, "LEVERTOFF, Paul Phillip."

^° Denise Levertov Papers, M0601, Box 15, Folder 17. Thanks to Tsvi Sadan for pointing

this out.

" Olga Tatjana Levertoff, "Paul Levertoff and the lewish-Christian Problem" in Lev

Gillet (ed.), Judaism and Christianity/Essays presented to the Rev, Paul P. Levertoff, D.D,

(London: I.B. Shears & Sons, 1939), 93.

^^ Rabbi Schneur Zalman was ". . .his [grandfather's] mother's uncle. . ." ([ no author].

"Thirty Years Work" from The Church and the Jews, No. 180, Autumn (1954), 4, located in

the Denise Levertov Papers, M0601, Box 34, Folder 36); Cf., Linda Welshimer Wagner,

Denise Levertov (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1967), 24.

" Paul Levertoff had two daughters: Olga Tatjana Levertoff and Denise Levertov. Denise

changed the spelling of her surname to 'Levertov' because her sister was already getting

published with the surname 'Levertoff so readers could distinguish between them.

Paul Phillip Levertoff 23

One day when he was eight or nine my father was walking home ...As he trudged homeward
my father's eye was caught by a scrap of printed paper lying in the gray, trampled snow.
Though he was a playful, disobedient boy like any other, he was also - like his playmates - a
little Talmud scholar, respectful of words; and he saw at a glance, too, that this paper was not
printed in Russian but in Hebrew. So he picked it up and began to read. Could it be a
fragment of Torah? Never before had he read such a story: about a boy like himself who - it
said - was found in the Temple expounding the scriptures to the old, reverent, important
rabbis! [Luke 2:46-47]

My father took the scrap - it was obviously a page from a book - home to his father. The effect
was startling. ...his father became angry - not with him, exactly, but rather with the text he
had brought to show him. He tore it into pieces and thrust them into the stove. My father was
vehemently told to avoid such writings, utterly, if ever he should again encounter them; but
just what they were, and how to tell them from holy writ, was not explained. My father was
awed to see written words destroyed - Hebrew words. It was not if it had been a mere scrap of
Russian newspaper.

Secretly, he wished he had not given up the mysterious fragment. Who was the wise boy in
the story? "

An interest had awakened in the young Levertoff. By his teenage years, he
was attending the Volozhin Yeshiva.'^ This Lithuanian Jewish seminary was
one of the most prominent in its day. Here Levertoff received an exemplary
rabbinic education/'' knowledge that he would demonstrate in his later years.
He was on his way to becoming a rabbi. Denise Levertov called her father "a
precocious graduate. . ."'^ of this institute, which meant he graduated early.
Afterwards Saul Levertoff, Paul Levertoff's father, had to send him out of the
country to the Prussian city of Konigsberg (modern day Kaliningrad) to obtain
a university education because Jews were not permitted to study in Russian
universities.

Paul Phillip Levertoff's fascination with Jesus continued through his
adolescent years. It was near the end of the 19th century, at the University of
Konigsberg where Levertoff reached a very important conclusion about Jesus
that would affect him the rest of his life for it was here

Denise became a very famous poet in America who later became Catholic but still

considered herself Jewish. She died in late 1997.

^* Denise Levertov, Tessarae/Memorie & Suppositions ( New York: New Directions Books,

1995), 4-5. Another source mentions the scrap of paper to be from the book of John, cf.

"...one day [Levertoff] found about the street of the little Russian town some leaves torn

from a book that had been printed in Hebrew, he was amazed to read something that

seemed to him Hassidic; but so strange, for it related in detail an account of the Messiah

who had been crucified. It was parts of the Gospel according to St. John." ("Thirty Years

Work", 4)

^' Located at the time in what is currently modern Belarus. This Yeshiva was founded in

1802 by Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin (1749-1821), a disciple of the Vilna Gaon. Much of the

Jewish population of Volozhin perished in the Holocaust. Today, the Yeshiva survives

transplanted in Israel. Denise Levertov mispells it "Valojine", Jewel Spears Brooker (ed.).

Conversations with Denise Levertov (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998), 90.)

and "Volojine" which appears to be the French spelling (Levertov, Tessarae/Memorie &

Suppositions, 6).

" Denise Levertov, Tessarae/Memorie & Suppositions, 6.

^^ Denise Levertov, Tessarae/Memorie & Suppositions, 6.

24 Jorge Quinonez

...in the Gentile, utterly secular atmosphere of the Prussian city, this hook [i.e., the Gospels]
of the Christians seemed more his than theirs. He read it in German, then in Hebrew. . . And
as he read he experienced a profound and shaking new conviction. This Jesus of
Nazareth... had indeed been the Messiah. ^^

The year this occurred was 1895" when Levertoff was only 17 or 18 years
old. Predictably his "family was appalled"^" after he told them of his new belief.
At this point, he seems to have had a major argument with his father - most
likely over his new belief - that led him to abruptly leave home.^' Without
financial support from his parents, he had to go it alone. He was baptized in 11
August 1895 in Konigsberg.^^For the next several years he "...supported
himself by tutoring and undertaking translations to and from the various
languages he knew."^^ Seeking employment as a missionary on 11 December
1896,^^ he applied for a position with the London Jews Society (LJS). ^' He was
accepted and soon worked full time in his new vocation.

Missionary Translator and Writer

For reasons unknown, Levertoff changed Jewish missions organizations in 1901,
having joined the staff of the Hebrew Christian Testimony to Israel (HCTI),
founded by two other JBJ, David Baron and Charles Andrew Schonberger in
1893. A thorough search of the CMJ archives in Oxford might shed light on the
question of what Levertoff did in the LJS.

Levertoff first appeared in the HCTI's periodical. The Scattered Nation in
1901^'' and continued to appear frequently in its pages through 1909 in his
reports and articles. He was one of the HCTI's most active missionaries,
traveling throughout Europe and the Mediterranean under their employ. He
usually traveled together with David Baron, who was 23 years older than

'* Denise Levertov, Tessarae/Memorie & Suppositions , 7; cf.. Jewel Spears Brooker (ed.).

Conversations with Denise Levertov (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998), 90.

" Cf. Karina Lehnardt, "LEVERTOFF, Paul Phillip. "; Encyclopaedia Judaica, " Levertoff,

Paul Phillip"; "Thirty Years Work", 4.

^° Denise Levertov, Tessarae/Memorie & Suppositions, 7.

^' Reportedly later in his life, Levertoff, regretted having fled his parents because they

did not agree with his new belief that Jesus was the Messiah for he ". . .often felt that if he

had been wiser he would have gained his father, for he realised how near the Kingdom

he was." ("Thirty Years Work", 4).

^^ E-mail from Charles Hundley of CMJ (dated 7 March 2002) of an unpublished record

on Levertoff.

^' Denise Levertov, Tessarae/Memorie & Suppositions, 8.

^* E-mail from Charles Hundley of CMJ (dated 7 March 2002) of an unpublished record

on Levertoff.

^' Short for "The London Society for promoting Christianity amongst the Jews".

^'' Paul Levertoff, "Experiences at Our New Centre" in The Scattered Nation 26 (April

1901), 253-255.

Paul Phillip Levertoff 25

Levertoff. They visited Hungary and Bosnia in 1905^^ and Egypt and Palestine
in 1908.''*

No less than seven original works and translations in Hebrew by Levertoff
were published in London between 1902 and 1909 by several London area
publishers and the HCTI publishing house's Hebrew name, Edut leYisrael}'' His
Hebrew writings did not go unnoticed within Jewish missionary circles: Arthur
Lukyn Williams said "Good work has been done in recent years in the
presentation of the life of our Lord to the Jews by... Levertoff. In this connection
may be mentioned... Levertoff's St. Paul. His Life, Works, and Travels, 1907 (in
modern Hebrew)..."™ For nearly a decade, he served the HCTI as their principal
Hebrew translator and writer.

Also noteworthy about Levertoff's Hebrew writings was the fact that Viduyei
Augustinus ha-Kadosh ("The Confessions of St. Augustine") was the first
translation into Hebrew of a major work by a Latin Church Father. Levertoff's
book on Jesus in Hebrew, Ben ha- Adam, ("The Son of Man") predated Joseph
Klausner's own book on Jesus, Yeshu ha-Notsri,^^ by over 17 years, which itself is
generally considered the first book written on Jesus and Christianity's early
beginnings by a Jewish scholar in Modern Hebrew. Regarding Levertoff's Ben
ha-Adam, Klausner said.

The plain purpose of the writer (in spite of what he says to the contrary in his Preface [to Ben
ha-Adam], p. xxi) is to win adherents to Christianity from among Russian Jews who read
Hebrew; and such a hook is not to he relied upon for objective and single-minded scholarship.
The author skillfully refrains from imposing upon us most of the unacceptable miracles; he
follows (as he tells us in his preface) P.W. Schmidt's excellent "Die Geschicte Jesu
erzdhlt. ..["] save that he conceals a few miracles and some missionary teaching in an account
of natural facts (obviously not always explained as they should be) and a presentation of the
ethical teachings of Jesus. . . . And this has been the only work about Jesus in modern Hebrew
literatureP^

'^ David Baron & Paul Levertoff, "Down the Danube to Hungary and Bosnia" in The

Scattered Nation 42 (April 1905), 317.

'* David Baron & Paul Levertoff, "A Mission Tour of Egypt and Palestine" in The

Scattered Nation 55 (July 1908), 135-150.

'' The titles of the publication were as follows; Yisra'el, emunato ute'udato [Israel's

Religion and Destiny] (London: Edut leYisrael, 1902); Ben ha-Adam, Chayey Yeshua ha-

Mashiach upealav [The Son of Man. A Survey of the Life and Deeds of Jesus Christ]

(London, 1904); ha-Amek She'ala (London, 1905) [partial Hebrew translation of Franz

Delitzsch's Ernste Fragen an die Gebildeten Judischer Religion]; Polus ha-Shaliach, o, Sha'ul ish

Tarsus: hayav, po'olav u-nesi'otav [St. Paul. His Life, Works, and Travels] (London: Y.

Neroditski, 1905); Viduyei Augustinus ha-Kadosh [The Confessions of St. Augustine].

(London: Luzac, 1906); Tomas Karlel: hashkefotav vede'otav, reshimot bikortiyot [Thomas

Carlyle. A Lecture] (London: Luzac, 1907); Hu veAni [He and I] (London: Edut leYisrael,

1909).

™ Hermann L. Strack, Jahrbuch der evangelischen Judenmission/Yearbookof the

Evangelical Missions among the Jews, Vol. 2 (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichssche Buchhandlung,

1913), 13.

'^Joseph Klausner, Yeshu ha- Notsri: zemano, hayav ue-torafo. Jerusalem: Shtibel [1922], 3;

(In English:) loseph Klausner. Jesus Of Nazareth (New York: MacMillan, 1925), 11.

'^ Joseph Klausner, Jesus Of Nazareth, 124.

26 Jorge Quinonez

Among Levertoff's publications from 1902 and 1909, Hu veAnP ("He and I")
is worth discussing because of its seemingly autobiographical veneer. It is the
story of a young yeshiva student, a JBJ, who is going to be punished for his
belief. Another character in the story is an old friend of his who knew him
before he came to his new belief in Jesus through the efforts of a wandering
missionary. The main character escapes his punishment through chance and the
two characters desire to discuss belief in Jesus; however, the main character, the
JBJ, has to leave the town the next morning. The story ends before this occurs. It
is apparent that Levertoff integrates some of his own early personal history into
this story. He is like the main character, who leaves his town because of his
belief in Jesus, which came about through his encounter with missionary
literature.

In 1910, Baron announced in The Scattered Nation that "Mr. Paul Levertoff
[had] accept[ed] an invitation from the United Free Church of Scotland Jewish
Committee to take the position of Evangelist in Constantinople [and] is no
longer a member of our missionary board." In Constantinople (modern day
Istanbul) in 1910, Levertoff met the lady who would later become his wife,
Beatrice Spooner-Jones. ''* She was Welsh not Jewish. They returned to England
to get married. In 1911, with the LJS he attended an important Jewish missions
conference in Stockholm, Sweden. '^ That same year, Levertoff moved with his
family to Warsaw. ''' He would soon (again) change employers and begin a new
career in academia.

Germany: Teacher and Scholar

Levertoff's life solely as a professional missionary would soon come to an end
since he would have a new job in a new city. He was appointed to the position
of teacher of Hebrew and Rabbinics with the Institutum Judaicum
Delitzschianum (IJD), a postgraduate institute for Jewish missions founded by
Franz Delitzsch in Leipzig, Germany. Otto von Harling, the IJD's director,
publicized that Levertoff was relocating from Warsaw to Leipzig on 1 April
1912,'^ to take over the teaching position at the IJD, which had been left vacant
by the death of Jechiel Zebi Herschensohn-Lichtenstein'** (hereafter

'^ In my comments, I refer to Levertoff's own English translation of Hu veAni, "Two of

Them"; Cf. Paul P. Levertoff. "Two of Them" in Henry Einspruch (ed.). When Jews face

Christ [First Edition] (Baltimore, MD: The Mediator, 1932), 144-156. Note Levertoff's

translation is not published in the second edition of Einspruch's When Jews face Christ

(Brooklyn: American Board of Missions to the Jews, 1939).

^■^ Denise Levertov, New & Selected Essays (New York; New Directions Books, 1992), 259.

'^ Hermann L. Strack, Jahrbuch der evangelischen Judenmission/Yearbookof the

Evangelical Missions among the Jews, Vol. 2 (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichssche Buchhandlung,

1913), 7.

^'' Denise Levertov, Light Up The Cave (New York: New Directions Books, 1981), 241.

'^ Otto von Harling, "An die Gesellschaften fiir Judenmission und die Freunde des

Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum!" in Saat auf Hoffnung 49 (1912), 92.

'^ Herschensohn-Lichtenstein (1831-1912) translated about half of the Tanach into

Yiddish. He was also a prolific Hebrew writer who among his many writings wrote

Paul Phillip Levertoff 27

Lichtenstein). He was a JBJ niaskiP'' of Romanian Hassidic background who had
held the position from 1885 until his death on 12 February 1912. A year later,
Levertoff and a colleague posthumously published Lichtenstein' s revised
Matthew commentary in Hebrew.^" The IJD's class schedules from 1912 to 1917
(published in its journal Saat auf Hoffnung) have Levertoff teaching a variety of
courses: Yiddish language, the New Testament in Hebrew based on
Lichtenstein' s commentary, Midrash, Isaac Troki's polemical work Hizzuk
Emunah, various books of the Tanach based on traditional Rabbinic
commentaries, and a variety of other similar subjects in Jewish studies,
Rabbinics and the New Testament.

Levertoff seemed to flourish in his new job for the next few years despite
having to endure unusual adversity for several years. During World War I
(1914-1916), he was under house arrest as a prisoner of war because he was a
Russian citizen. This did not in any way stop him academically; he was quite
prolific. In addition to Hebrew, he now wrote extensively in German which
included a number of articles for Saat auf Hoffnung. According to his older
daughter.

The War [WW I] deprived him of his post, but kept him in Germany until the Armistice, as a
prisoner who, it is interesting to note, was, in spite of many hardships, commissioned by the
University [of Leipzig] to write three books:

1. The edition and German translation, with commentary, of the Pesikta Rabbati, a collection
of ancient Synagogue homilies never before translated into any language.

2. German translation of the whole of the Palestinian Talmud [Talmud Yerushalmi], with
commentary.

3. "Die religiose Denkweise der Chassidim" - the first systematic treatise on intellectual
Jewish mysticism.

The first and third of these works were produced, though, for lack of funds, only the third was
published. The Talmud... never reached the public... [because of] the advent of a new "race-
cultured" system in Germany... render[ed] its publication impossible.*^

Die religiose Denkweise der Chassidim did indeed see the light of day.''^
Levertoff eventually made an English adaptation of it that he later published as

what is probably the only commentary on the whole New Testament in Hebrew
(recently republished in Israel). He was more commonly known to Christian readers by
the name of "J. Lichtenstein" and is not to be confused with the Hungarian Orthodox
Rabbi, Isaac (Ignatz) Lichtenstein, another IBI. His story is a worthy topic for further
investigation since so little biographical information available about him is published in
English; See lorge Quinonez. "An Introductory Bio-bibliography to lechiel Zebi
Herschensohn-Lichtenstein (1831-1912)" in Kesher 15 (Summer 2002), 78-89.
'' The maskilim (singular maskil) were participants of the Haskalah, the "enlightenment", a
lewish movement originating in 18th century Germany aimed at modernizing lewish life
and thought or the integration of lews into the larger society. Notable features within the
movement was maskilim cooperation with liberal-minded Christian thinkers and that
much of the maskilim literature was disseminated in Hebrew; Cf. Shmuel Feiner & David
Sorkin, New Perspectives on the Haskalah (Oregon: Littman, 2001).

'"' lechiel Zebi Lichtenstein, Beur lesifrei berit hachadashah /Kerech [aleph]: Matai . Paul
Levertoff & Heinrich Laible (eds.) (Leipzig, 1913); It was republished in Yehiel Tsvi
Lichtenstein. Sugiyot nibharot besefer haberit hadashah [A Commentary on Selected Portions
From the New Testament] (Jerusalem: Keren Ahvah Meshihit, 2002), 13-63.
■*' Olga Tatjana Levertoff, "Paul Levertoff and the Jewish-Christian Problem", 99.

28 Jorge Quinonez

Love and the Messianic Age."^^ Both of these works were pioneering from the
context of a comparative religion perspective. They were Levertoff's attempts in
exploring similarities between Hassidic and New Testament theology. This
study would later become very important theme in later writings because of his
desire to create a theology that would be acceptable and used in a community
of JBJ. The original text and German translation of Pesikta Rabbati is extant in
manuscript form'*'' in the Stanford University Libraries. It is unfortunate that
Levertoff never even had the opportunity to begin his translation and
commentary of the Palestinian Talmud into German.

His time with IJD lasted until 1918 when he left Germany for England.
World War One had left him and his family impoverished.^'

England: The Issue of a Hebrew-Christian Church

Levertoff and his family returned to his wife's native Wales, where, between
1919 through 1922, he held the position of librarian at St. Deiniol's Library,
Hawarden (Flintshire County). During this time, he was also ordained by the
Archbishop of Wales into the Church of England.^*" In 1923, he became Director
of the East London Fund for the Jews and took over Holy Trinity, a church in
Shoreditch while making his residence in Ilford. While in this position, he
published the quarterly The Church and the Jews. As spiritual leader of Holy
Trinity, he realized his goal of having a "Hebrew Christian Church" where JBJ
could worship by making it familiar to them which "...would make a much
stronger appeal than Missionary Societies organized by Gentiles. "^^ He followed
in the tradition of Joseph Rabinowitz^** and Hayyim Yedidyah Pollak,^' to
establish an independent community and congregation of JBJ. Levertoff
appealed to "... those Jews who are not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ and of
their Jewish origin ... to unite as a community . . . and institute Jewish Christian
services of worship which would present our Faith in terms of the rich
background of devotional and mystical Jewish traditions."™

■•^ Paul Levertoff, Die religiose Denkweise der Chassidim (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1918).

■*' Paul Levertoff, Love and the messianic age in hitherto untranslated Hasidic writings with

special reference to the Fourth Gospel (London, Episcopal Hebrew Christian Church, 1923).

Denise Levertov Papers, M0601, Box33, Jjoldersl and 2.
■*' Olga Tatjana Levertoff, "Paul Levertoff and the Jewish-Christian Problem", 100.
■"^ Olga Tatjana Levertoff, "Paul Levertoff and the Jewish-Christian Problem", 100.
■•^ Paul Levertoff, "Editorial" in The Church and the Jews, No. 79 (London, April 1929), 7
[located in the Denise Levertov Papers, M0601, Box 34, Folder 25].

Kai Kjaer-Hansen, Joseph Rabinowitz and the Messianic Movement ( Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Eerdmans/ Handsel, 1995).

■^ Also known as Christian Theophilus Lucky (1864-1916); Cf. Henry Einspruch, "A
Lamed-Vovnik" in Henry and Marie Einspruch (eds.) Would I? Would You? (Baltimore:
Lederer Foundation, 1970), 74-78; Cf. Theodor Zoeckler, "Christian Theophilus Lucky"
in Saat aufHoffnung 60, (Leipzig, 1917), 2-8.

™ Paul Levertoff, The Possibility of a Hebrew-Christian Church (London: Conferences of
Missionary Societies in Great Britain and Ireland, no date), 4; according to Gershon Nerel
this same title appeared as an article in The Hebrew Christian Alliance Quarterly, vol. 7
(1924).

Paul Phillip Levertoff 29

To that end in 1925, Levertoff published his Hebrew liturgy Meal of the Holy
King^^ that was his own attempt to establish a liturgy for a Hebrew Christian
church. In the late 19th century, the LJS and Rabinowitz,'^ had their own
Hebrew liturgies for JBJ. Additionally, Levertoff's contemporary Leon
Averbuch, a Romanian JBJ leader, employed several different Hebrew and
Yiddish hymnbooks.^' Levertoff, now an Anglican priest, certainly had the
option of employing the LJS's Hebrew translation of the Anglican Church's
Book of Common Prayer (BCP), which the LJS had used in Christ Church under
Michael Solomon Alexander in Jerusalem, a JBJ and Anglican Bishop in
Jerusalem, in the mid-19th century. ''* However, rather than employ the standard
Anglican liturgy in Hebrew he went to the trouble to write his own Hebrew
liturgy that he entitled Meal of the Holy King.

Levertoff read from a Torah scroll with tallit and kippah as part of the
Hebrew services at Holy Trinity. While it was not a new thing to have a
Hebrew liturgy for JBJ in England since the LJS had used the Hebrew BCP at
times in their own chapel, this was one step closer to a native Jewish Christian
liturgy. The liturgy was original, Jewish in authorship, faithful to the sources
and not just a plain Hebrew translation of a Christian liturgical text.
Comparisons to Rabinowitz's own Hebrew liturgy Tefilah, while interesting, are
beyond the scope of this paper.

Within the International Hebrew Christian Alliance (IHCA), Levertoff was
highly respected, but he was not entirely associated with the Alliance itself. At a
missionary conference held in Edinburgh in 1931, Frederick Levison, son of Sir
Leon Levison, said of Levertoff:

... the outstanding contribution came from Dr Paul Levertoff. . . It was on literature for the
Jews, a subject on the Alliance's agenda, and Leon afplauded [Levertoff s] plea for the Hebrew
tongue, so sacred to the Jew, and for a Hebrew New Testament and commentary. Dr Levertoff
became ...a key member of the subsequent Commission on a Hebrew Christian Church,

without wholly identifying himself with the Alliance. ''

Levertoff himself mentions his involvement with the IHCA's Hebrew
Christian Church Commission in 1932 in his publication. The Church and the

'^ Seder kiddush disudhata demalka kadisha /The Order of Service of the Meal of the Holy King ,

Shoreditch (London: Mowbray, 1925).

'^ Kai Kjaer-Hansen, "Two Nineteenth Century Hebrew ' Siddurim'" in Mishkan 25 (1996),

50-59; Cf., Jorge Quinonez (ed.), TEFILAH/ Joseph Rabinowitz's/Prayerbook from 1892 /A

Transcribed Edition (2000), unpublished mss.

'^ The Hebrew Christian , International Hebrew Christian Alliance, Vol. LXII, No. 1,

(March-May 1989), 11.

'■* Even at the beginning of the twentieth century, LJS missionary, Aaron Bernstein,

stated that ". . .our Hebrew Prayer Book has now become almost an obsolete book, as it is

only used in Jerusalem and for missionary purposes." from Aaron Bernstein. "A

Formation of a Hebrew-Christian Church: Is It Desirable?" in Jewish Missionary

Intelligence (May 1902), 68.

'' Frederick Levison, Christian and Jew/The Life of Leon Levison 1881-1936 (Edinburgh: The

Pentland Press Ltd., 1989), 209-210.

30 Jorge Quinonez

fews.^^ In the same space, he presents his own draft for the "The Ten Principles
of the Faith of the Hebrew Christian Church" much of which was later
incorporated into the final version as "The Proposed Articles of Faith for the
Hebrew Christian Church."'^ Nerel points out that the death of Levison in 1935
drastically changed the IHCA's attitude towards a Hebrew Christian Church,

... the IHCA . , . seriously considered establishing a Hebrew Christian Church . . . The main
motivator for this was Sir Leon Levison, born in Safed and first President of the IHCA. , .
However, after Levison's death in 1935, the IHCA drastically withdrew from its official policy
to form a global Hebrew Christian church under its wings?^

The IHCA's change in policy signaled the end for further official discussion
for a Hebrew Christian Church within the IHCA proper. However, for three
decades with little or no aid from the IHCA, Levertoff led his congregation
while keeping a low profile.

During 1920s and 1930s, he transferred his scholarly prowess for ancient
Jewish texts from the German into the English language. In 1933, along with
Harry Sperling and Maurice Simon, he helped translate the Zohar into English
for the first time for Soncino Press (see note 2). Such involved work on the
Zohar by a JBJ had not been done in several centuries. '' Levertoff also translated
the Sifre on Numbers," a halakhic midrashic text, into English for the first
time." While he only translated about a fifth of the text, it served as the only
available translation for the next 60 years until Jacob Neusner had a translation
of his own published. ""^

During his tenure as the priest at Holy Trinity, in addition to leading a small
community of JBJ, Levertoff assisted everyone from Hans HerzP', also a JBJ and
son of Theodore Herzl, to providing succor to JBJ refugees from Austria and

'•' Paul Levertoff, "Editorial" in The Church and the Jews, No. 91 (London, April 1932), 6-7
[located in the Denise Levertov Papers, M0601, Box 34, Folder 27].

Robert!. Winer, The Calling/The History of the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America. PA;
MJAA (1990), 122-23; See also Gershon Nerel, "Creeds among Jewish Believers in Yeshua
between World Wars" in Mishkan 34 (2001), 65-69.

'* Gershon Nerel, "Attempts to Establish a 'Messianic Jewish Church' in Eretz-Israel" in
Mishkan 28 (1998), 40.

'' I am referring to the very lengthy Messianic commentary on the Zohar by the JBJ
Johann Kemper (died 1714); Cf. Elliot R. Wolfson. "Messianism in the Christian
Kabbalah of Johann Kemper," in Millenarianism and Messianism in the Early Modern
European Culture: Jewish Messianism in the Early Modern World, edited by Matthew D.
Goldish and Richard H. Popkin (the Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001),
139-187. For a good biographical account of Kemper, see the chapter entitled "'Rabbi'
Johan Kemper in Uppsala" in Hans Joachim Schoeps. Philosemitismus im Barock
(Germany: J.C.B. (Paul Siebeck) Tubingen, 1952), 92-133.

" Paul P. Levertoff, Midrash Sifre on Numbers/ Selections from Early Rabbinic Scriptural
Interpretations (London: S. P. C. K. ,1926).

•"^ H.L. Strack and G. Stemberger, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash (Scotland: T&T
Clark, 1991), 292.

"■^ According to Strack and Stemberger, 292: Jacob Neusner, Sifre to Numbers: An American
Translation and Explanations, 2 vols (Atlanta, 1986).

""^ This is a very tragic story. Hans Herzl became a JBJ in 1924 and committed suicide in
1930; Cf. Einspruch, When Jews face Christ, 12-13; Cf. Hans Herzl, Letter to Mr. Levertoff.
July 29, 1926 (Denise Levertov Papers, M0601, Boxll, Jolder 8).

Paul Phillip Levertoff 31

Nazi Germany." A very interesting aspect about Levertoff's life in England,
which I will only briefly touch upon was Levertoff's relations with the Jewish
intelligentsia of the time, many fleeing Nazi oppression or on their way to
America or British Mandatory Palestine, who made London their home for a
time. For example, Levertoff corresponded with the maskil Joseph Brenner''^ and
had many discussions with the Yiddish writer Sholem Asch." Levertoff surely
kept current with the Hebrew press of his time as J. Klausner observed:

In [Levertoff's] introduction [to Ben ha-Adam] he indulges in argument against "Ahad ha-
Am," Dr. Neumark, S. J. Horowitz, Dr. Bernfeld and the present writer [Klausner], because
of their articles in Ha-Shiloach on the "Nature of Judaism" they did not perceive the
advantages of Christianity .^^

A Lost Work

One intriguing work by Levertoff that unfortunately no longer appears to be
extant is Christ and the Shekinah, which Lev Gillet, a friend of Levertoff, first
mentioned in 1939:

This question of the Shekinah and its relationship with Christology is, as we know it, in the
center of Dr. Levertoff's theological concerns. This is why the work Christ and the Shekinah

that for a long time he prepared on the topic will be "the book of his life. "

Several years later, in 1942, he alludes to it again: "Levertoff has also written
a great work still unpublished on Christ and the Shekinah."^'' Levertoff as early as
the 1920s when he wrote Love and the Messianic Age was trying to integrate
Christian and Jewish theologies as Gillet explains "...[Levertoff] understood the
importance of an intellectual appeal and the necessity of expressing the
theological concepts of Christianity in Jewish terms (according to him, along the
lines of the Shekinah teaching and of Hasidic mysticism)."™ Gillet first refers to
Christ and the Shekinah in 1939 and later in 1942. It was obviously a late writing
(most likely begun in the late 1930s) and by the tone of Gillet's comments very
serious to Levertoff. Christ and the Shekinah is only mentioned here because of
the potential importance it could have in answering the question which is still
unanswered: How successful was Levertoff in creating a theology of Jewish-
Christianity melding Hassidic theology with the New Testament? This question
is especially important to modern JBJ who struggle with practically the same

" Olga Tatjana Levertoff, "Paul Levertoff and the Jewish-Christian Problem", 109.

•"^ Cf. Leonard Prager, Yiddish Culture in Britain , 405; Cf. Yitzchak Bakon, "Rumors" in

From Within the Band (Tel Aviv: Papyrus Publishing, 1982) [Hebrew].

'''' Paul Levertoff, "Editorial Notes" in The Church and the Jews, No. 175, London (July

1953), 4-5.

•■^ Joseph Klausner, Jesus Of Nazareth, 124.

•"^ Lev Gillet, "Questions Concernant la Chekinah" in Lev Gillet (ed.), Judaism and

Christianity/ Essays presented to the Rev. Paul P. Levertoff, 33; This quote is translated from

the French.

•"^ Lev Gillet, Communion in the Messiah (Lutterworth Press, 1942), 84 n. 1.

™ Lev Gillet, Communion in the Messiah, 203.

32 Jorge Quinonez

question of how to establish a feasible theology for JBJs that is compatible with
the New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism/^

Conclusion

Not the average missionary apostate as the Jewish press might have depicted at
various times, Levertoff continued to write in Hebrew and English in his final
two decades. His Hebrew Christian church service did not seem to thrive after
his death on 31 July 1954. He followed in the footsteps of Michael Solomon
Alexander in establishing a Hebrew Christian Church connected to the
Anglican Church. In hindsight, unlike other JBJ maskilim such as Herschensohn-
Lichtenstein, Isaac Salkinson,^^ or Hayyim Yedidyah Pollak, today Levertoff is
more remembered and this because of his major scholarly achievements. For
example, the English edition of the Zohar he helped translate is still widely
used today. His Hebrew Torah service at Holy Trinity portended at things to
come half a century later in the USA with the formation of the modern
Messianic Jewish congregational movement. Additionally, he is still published
in Israel today: his book Ben /la-Adajn" and translation ha-Amek S/ie 'ala^'* have
been reprinted. As probably the last of the JBJ maskilim in the early 20th
century,^' Levertoff lived in the twilight of the Haskalah and died 31 July 1954, at
the dawn of the modern Jewish state. He is today perhaps more relevant to us
than he was 75 years ago when he seemed nothing more than a fringe
theological curiosity. He was both a congregational leader and capable Jewish
scholar; he engaged and interacted with Jewish thinkers, and helped the
Hebrew-Christian movement push in directions which reflected the modes of
thought of traditional Judaism. Suggested topics for future investigation are the
relationship his Hebrew writings have had in the history of Modern Hebrew
literature and his polemic relation with the Jewish intellectuals of his time.

^^ I tried with great effort to locate Christ and the Shekinah to no avail.

^^ Hanna Scolnicov, "The Hebrew Who Turned Christian: The First Translator of

Shakespeare into the Holy Tongue" in Shakespeare Survey, Vol, 54: Shakespeare and

Religions, Peter Holland (ed.), November (2001), 182-190.

" Jerusalem: Dolphin (1968).

""^ Jerusalem: Keren Ahvah Meshihit (1999).

'' Cf., ". . .missionaries tried to reach the maskil through Hebrew as late as the third

decade of the [twentieth century]" (Leonard Prager. Yiddish Culture in Britain, 391).